No.342 : Wicked Spring (2002)

 Wicked Spring at the IMDb

The American Civil War lasted for about four years - this film felt slightly longer.

We open in 1861 with a long and meandering introduction to our characters. It is the golden time before the war, and we are treated to bucolic scenes of the harvest and people courting. We know it can’t last and are eventually transported to a battle in 1863 where the Blues and the Greys are facing off, in a small scale battle, in some woods.

The battle scene is the highlight of the film but it does highlight the small budget that is in play, with the 20 odd soldiers, who comprise each army, struggling to make the scene look epic. It looks daft that they are all crammed together to try and show scale as it’s clear that they would have fought better by spreading out a bit.

The battle isn’t well choreographed with at times it being unclear who is shooting who. This may be deliberate to show the horrors of war, but for me it just looked a bit unfocused and messy. There were several kills with the actors being shown to be hit many times from different angles in slow motion. This was a strange choice by the director as it took you out of the moment and made the thing look like a rap video.

With one side routed the soldiers flee into the woods and are detached from their units. Our main hero, Harrison, is with another soldier and they meet up with four others and set up a camp. Over an never-ending night the men share stories and food and we learn that Harrison hasn’t read any of the letters he received from his sweetheart, as he doesn’t read too good and that.

His new friend reads all his letters for him and sadly there’s no juicy stuff. There is however plenty of violin music accompanying the endless letter reading so we have that at least. I was expecting a bit more during this section to be honest, but maybe I just missed what was happening in the dark. “I can’t see a damn thing!“ someone exclaims at one point - I hear you brother, but obviously I can’t see you.

The next morning Harrison is awoken by a kick to the ribs. The nasty one with the medical background has discovered that the soldiers are from different sides and decides to take those from his enemy prisoner, so that he can return to his lines without being branded a deserter. A great plan, but one that quickly flounders as the upper hand switches back and forth between the two sides.

Who will win the day? And will the night of bonding help heal the schism between the two groups and across America as a whole? Probably not, as the battle is still raging and those extras seem keen to get home…

This was an awful film that looked like some Civil War re-enactor’s pet project that somehow found its way onto Amazon Prime. Fair enough it was based on a true incident, but one thing this effort will teach you is that not all true events are deserving of being recreated. There probably was a decent story in here to be fair, but the execution was just plain awful.

I was expecting some great revelation or horror, but in the end it was the old 'futility of war' message rote large for no entertainment or learning benefit whatsoever.

It didn’t look like there was a profession actor on show at all, which is fair enough as they also dispensed with a writer, editor and director too! Some scenes rambled on forever with the fireside letter reading section taking up an inordinate amount of the film for zero benefit whatsoever. You may say it built up Harrison’s character but alas there was none to begin with and all this added was that he couldn’t read.

The attempts at healing the divides were ham-fisted as was the conclusion which basically shouted ‘That’s the budget done, bring back the re-enacting guys’. Overall this was a painful watch and it’s just a pity Lincoln isn’t about to free this guff from my consciousness.

Best Bit : Opening Battle Scenes - ‘W’ Rating  : 8/23

No.341 : Warrior Queen (1987)

Warrior Queen at the IMDb

Time to class things up here with this historical drama which charts the last days of Pompeii. OK, the Frankie Howerd version may have been more accurate and had better sets, but this has Sybil Danning and a man being killed with a Frisbee.

We open with Sybil arriving in town in a small bandwagon. They are attacked by some brigands who quickly see off her soldier escort. They didn’t bargain on Sybil however, as she manages to kill three of them without breaking a sweat or looking a bit interested.

Meanwhile in town, the slave auction is in full swing and the director wastes no time in setting out his stall for his target audience. Let’s just say the bidders insist on a full inspection of the goods.

A ‘Ben Hur’ wannabe shows up and has a bit of a scrap with a non copyright ‘Hercules’ and Donald Pleasence takes the pay cheque as Emporer Clodius who fawns over Sybil a lot and does little else. The plot here is as thin as the slave girls’ tops but essentially we get a few days ‘slice of life’ entertainment before Vesuvius blows its top in magical stock footage fashion.

Sybil’s motivations aren’t clear but she does befriend one slave girl and takes a necklace off her and gives it back at the end. I guess she’s meant to be some sort of emancipation figure but she hardly has any lines and zero character development. Ben Hur and the slave girl we follow have a small romance arc that sees him killing folk in the arena whilst she gets raped in the woods. They all come through it unscathed, although the same can’t be said for their wardrobes.

There isn’t any real social commentary here with the elaborate fighting games and freely available sex doubtless meant to signal that this society was too bloated and due a bit of cleansing. Some of the exposition may have been lost in the 68 minute cut I saw on Amazon prime, but I doubt it. This was a ‘Caligula’ type soft porn with history used to dress up a bit of smut. Alas the production values were not matched with stock footage obtrusively appearing for the crowd and eruption scenes, and many of the sets looking distinctly wobbly despite the Rome locations.

This is just short enough to not be a total waste of time as you will get a couple of cheezy laughs and some titillation for your hour long investment. Don’t be basing your thesis on it though, unless its titled ‘Crappy & Inaccurate Boob Fests I Have Seen’.

Best Bit : I bid 1000 Sesterti! ‘W’ Rating 8/23

No.320 : What About Dick? (2012)

What About Dick? at the IMDb

I chanced upon this one on Netflix and thought I’d unearthed a gem given the stellar cast, but alas it was a rough in the rough.

The film is a live performance in the style of a 1940’s radio play complete with a man making all the special effects noises. A partisan L.A. audience laps it up but I didn’t laugh at all, at the puerile humour which is usually my thing.

Eric Idle wrote and starred in the film and plays a piano which charts the decline of the British Empire. He’s not a piano, but wears a piano key tie so that we remember he is the constant who relates and narrates the story whilst the cast ham it up as various characters.

The plot is wafer thin and serves only to get a few songs in as well as barrels of innuendo and funny voices. Tracey Ullman was probably the best value doing good voice work and clearly getting into the spirit of things. You also get Jane Leeves and Big Suze as a pair of sisters and Russell Brand as the titular Dick who manages to make the part his own, in his usual style.

You also get Eddie Izzard as an Indian manufacturer of rubber dildos and Billy Connolly as a police inspector cum private eye who has a lisping voice that he at least finds very funny. You also get Tim Curry and Jim Piddock who mostly just do funny voices and patch the whole thing together.

A couple of the songs were decent but the whole thing just seemed awfully lazy with characters called ‘Bastard’ and Dickhead’ for example. There were also old jokes on parade with the Indian Regiment called ‘The First Foot & Mouth’ © ‘Carry on up the Khyber’ and someone saying ‘I opened the door in my pyjamas - why was there a door in my pyjamas?’ - yawn.

The runtime of 80 minutes may seem short but it does drag on once you get an idea of the humour and writing on show. It’s a great cast who are clearly enjoying themselves; it’s just a shame they didn’t invite the viewer along.

Brand and Connolly were unintelligible in places and you have to wonder what the American audience made of them. Funny eccentrics I guess, but I was cringing at the mirth free and faintly embarrassing wacky antics on show.

It may have been a good night out after a few beers but as a Netflix offering it fell flat with a lot of the seemingly period humour already dated - Berlesconi ‘bunga bunga’ references anyone? Actually it would probably have been painful to see live as a lot of transitions were added in to show flashbacks as well as caption cards, which suggested the whole thing was edited down to afford the audience at home a small measure of mercy.

For me this was a self indulgent and unfunny mess that offered no laughs, but if you want to see some of your favourite comedians ham it up, fill your boots. You’ll just never convince me that saying ‘dick’ as a euphemism for ‘penis’ 200 times qualifies as entertainment.

Best Bit : Not Russell Brand’s Dick ‘W’ Rating  8/23

No.306 : Who Am I? (1998)

Who Am I? at the IMDb

Before this offering I’d never seen a Jackie Chan film, believing them to be shit. Having watched this one, I have not seen my original hypothesis disproved. Chan gets credit for direction, stunts and screenplay, in that order, so you have right away an idea of where the focus was - not on story or character but on kicking people a lot.

Chan plays the cleverly named character ‘Jackie Chan’ who is part of a military unit in South Africa. We have seen a meteorite being mined and its explosive power. Chan and his team carry out a mission to retrieve some fragments of the meteorite but are double crossed by some shits in suits who crash the helicopter they are travelling in, off camera, to save some money and to deny us a small thrill. Chan falls out before the explosion and is saved by a forest canopy and some natives who nurse him back to health - but oh no! Jackie has lost his memory.

After having difficulty in making himself understood to both the natives and the viewing audience, Jackie soon speaks the language and wears the garb and make up of the tribe. He finds the rest of his dead crew and the body of one of the bad guys who was tossed from the helicopter. Their multiple passports suggest there is more going on, and a matchbook with some writing on it may hold the answers - new one that!

Jackie then encounters a rally car where the driver has been bitten by a snake. He uses his new found tribal abilities to cure the bite and his kick ass driving talent to win the stage and deliver the man to the medics. This heroism gets press attention and soon the evil shits in suits are after our man who calls himself ‘Whoami’ due to his amnesia. A trip to Rotterdam ensues, where there are innumerable fights and chases before we learn who he is (Jackie Chan) and what becomes of the meteorite which has the potential to unleash untold energy.

Like a Van Damme film, it’s hard to criticise a Jackie Chan movie for bad acting or too much fighting. It was really dull however and I couldn’t see the end quick enough. Jackie seems a lovely bloke, but he lacks leading man charisma and seemed badly dubbed throughout. Indeed, everyone was, with the scientists especially, sounding like someone had phoned in some random voices for them.

There were a couple of decent set pieces but they went on too long with the big finale rooftop fight taking at least ten minutes during which one blow may have landed. The plot was atom thick with there no sense of danger as the disc with the meteor data changed hands every five minutes and the double crosses piled up.

Jackie’s lack of identity didn’t really matter to the plot and the whole thing seemed facile especially as his name is over the title. The film does need your buy in to the fact that no one gets killed by our man, and that all the bad guys queue up to get their faces nearly kicked. You also have to love Jackie with lots of small amusements thrown in so you can say ‘Ooh that Jackie!’. fair enough for his fan base but him getting it in the nuts once with a gear stick is fine - the other several events of this I could have done without.

It was obvious that this was a multi country co-production that was not shot in English. The dubbing was risible as was a lot of the stunt work, which saw the older characters turn into stuntmen when they were getting hit before turning back into themselves as they recovered from the fall.

I enjoyed no laughs or thrills throughout this film and despite some decent locations and stunts it was a complete waste of time. Who am I? Don’t care mate.

Best Bit : Streets Get Clogged  ‘W’ rating 8/23

No.248 : We Are Monster (2014)

We Are Monster at the IMDb

Uplifting family fun now as we enjoy a knockabout British romp set in a young offenders institution. Actually, scratch that - this is one of the nastiest and most depressing films you’ll ever see. It could be claimed to be a drama documentary profiling a shocking case of murder and institutional ineptitude but it’s just a horrible watch that offers nothing in the way or answers or, God forbid, entertainment.

The film opens at its inevitable conclusion with a blood soaked youth being bundled out of his cell as he stands over his bloodied victim. There is no explanation but we are then shuttled back a few weeks so that we can understand how we got here. To be honest they could have covered the ground in two minutes - mental racist kills Asian cell mate. Still if they’d went that way we wouldn’t have had the full 90 minutes of nihilistic fun and racial slurs.

The subject of the film, which is ‘based on a true story’, is Robert a self tattooed racist who has been in the system for years. He is in for threatening a call centre worker and seems off balance from the start. Before long he starts talking with himself - literally as his nasty persona takes form as himself whom only he can see. This leads to lots of scene where he is egging himself on to greater and greater feats of nastiness whilst the P.O.V.s of other prisoners show him to be talking to an empty seat.

The prison officers, who include Clem Fandango, aren’t much use and aren’t shy of a bit of casual racism themselves. They put Robert in a cell with Asian youth Zahid who is in for stealing razor blades - before long he’s going to wish he went with a beard! Zahid tried to be friendly but backs off when Robert gets more aggressive and introverted. Zahid is due to be released in a few days so resolves to keep his head down.

Robert meanwhile starts to delve into his past and tries to rationalise his situation. The film does the same with an abusive childhood and faults in the system the reason for Robert’s mental state. Some of these scenes were well done with his brown underpants wearing father beating him up as a child for wetting the bed. The film isn’t too apologist for Robert’s ultimate act but you do get the sense that they are showing him to be a victim too.

As the film moves towards its inevitable climax we are left to wonder what could have been done differently and what have we learned. Should we have watched that Adam Sandler comedy instead? Maybe!

This is an impossible film to like with its endless racist rants and unsubtle swipes at authority and society. They was an effort to explain Robert’s actions but that veered away from his own responsibility and while he was broken by the system he’s still a murdering scumbag with no redeeming features.

The film was hung on the central performance of Leeshon Alexander as Robert and he did OK with a difficult dual role. As ‘normal’ Robert he was too starey and manic and as his alter ego he was annoying and shouty. He did have difficult material to work with though, as he was spouting a lot of garbage that even the KKK would see as a tad extreme.

The closing captions of the film lay all the blame at the authorities’ door, and of course there were shortcomings, but to make apologies for the central scumbag didn’t sit right and you have to wonder about the point of the whole enterprise. The film’s vibe was hateful throughout and all I came away with was a grubby feeling for having watched the whole grim spectacle.

Best Bit - No I can’t hear you Clem Fandango
‘W’ Rating - 8/23

No.233 : Wing Commander (1999)

Wing Commander at the IMDb

 Films based on video games are invariably great so this should be a lot of fun…

Oh well, let’s have a look anyway. This 1999 film is based on a video game series I haven’t played but it has a pretty strong cast and has some decent special effects so hopefully it won’t be a total waste of time.

The film is set in ‘Earth Year 2654’ and opens with JFK’s speech about the benefits of space exploration before giving us a potted history of the future leading up to the ‘present day’ where mankind is engaged in a war with the Kolrathi, strange cat like beings who have shinier spaceships than us. An initial skirmish goes badly when the bad guys knock out one of our ships and steal a navigation computer that will allow them to find Earth.

The field command, lead by David ‘Poirot’ Suchet and David Warner (for once not a baddie) have to get some intel to a remote station and the only vessel capable of getting there ahead of the aliens is the lowly ‘Dilligent’ crewed by Fred out of the Scooby Doo films and strangely Shaggy as well. This pre-dated Scooby by a couple of years so someone must have thought they had chemistry together or maybe there was just a lazy casting agent with some Tip-pex.

Anyway our men get the orders delivered and join up as pilots in Saffron Burrow’s fighter squad. She’s the ‘Wing Commander’ of the title which is strange as she isn’t the focus of the film and isn’t in it too much, but a franchise is a franchise I guess! There are a few bits of conflict, mainly about Fred’s ancestry and Shaggy’s recklessness but the remainder of the film is a cat and mouse chase with the bad guys as our heroes try and save Earth whilst trotting out as many sci-fi clichés as possible.

This is a really poor film that demands a lot of the viewer who is willing to stay the course. It is hard to be invested in any of the characters who are all thinly drawn with arcs so dismal that they look a lot like straight lines. The hero Fred faces challenges as he has a ‘Pilgrim’ mother - this is an untrusted alien race and his heritage allows lots of prejudice and conflict - bit like Misters Worf and Spock really. That’s a bit unfair given Worf came later but it’s just such a familiar sci-fi trope that it is hard to get interested. He even has an ancient amulet - a bit like Lone Star off ‘Spaceballs’!

The action scenes are reasonably well done with 3-D space well rendered and the dangers quite real. The problem is that one battle lurches into another and it’s hard to keep the energy and indeed interest up. I started to lose track of what wormhole was what and where we were in relation to the eventual victory, which was never in doubt. There really just was nothing to get invested in and despite some noble sacrifices and heartbreaking losses it showed its video game roots with immediate respawns of near identical characters taking up the slack.

It wasn’t downright terrible but it just lumbered along and given the bad guys would have been laughed off a 1970’s ‘Dr Who’ episode for being unconvincing it’s no surprise that the inevitable victory was tinged with so much ‘so what?’.

It’s a shame a good cast wasn’t better utilised and I got the feeling several of them had ten minutes on set to secure their pay cheques and places on the credits to make it look a more worth endeavour than it actually was. Forgettable cookie cutter stuff.

Best Bit : First space battle was good - fourth replay less so.
‘W’ Score 8/23

No.214 : Walk the Dark Street (1956)

Walk the Dark Street at the IMDb

It is important that cinema history is preserved and fine sites like Open Culture are a great resource for making available films that have fallen into the public domain. That said, for every film worth saving there are plenty best forgotten about and ‘Walk the Dark Street’ certainly falls into the latter category.

The film opens with a man walking down a dark street - can fault him for not following the title! But wait!, it’s not actually dark as he’s casting a long shadow - what a swizz. The man is nervous and throws himself to the ground when a car tyre bursts. Given he’s now lying down he takes the opportunity to go into flashback mode via the classic ‘wobbly picture’ process.

He’s now in Korea fighting in the war. He’ll be OK though as all the guns and explosion are all from stock footage. He and a few men are in a fox hole and given there have been no Koreans cast they take the time to have a bitch session. Our man, Dan, has been given a battlefield promotion to Lieutenant and this has pissed off the other candidate, Tommy, who writes to his brother to say that if he dies it will be Dan’s fault. In the very next scene Tommy is indeed killed when his runs into machine gun fire - that’ll teach them to be mean with the promotions!

Back in present day Los Angeles the now demobbed Dan pays a visit on Frank who is Tommy’s brother and recipient of the poisonous letter. He acts all friendly with Dan and even treats him and us to five minutes of stock footage of animals in Africa. He explains that he is a passionate hunter but heart trouble has curtailed his animal killing.

He has a plan though! He has invented a gun that takes photos rather than firing bullets and he proposes that he and Dan hunt each other through the streets of LA and the one who confirms a ‘kill’ by way of a photograph wins the bet. Dan is a bit hesitant but when get gets 10/1 odds on a thousand dollar bet he sees a way to clear his own bills that stem from his burnt out sports shop.

They agree to start the hunt the next day but once Dan has left Frank puts a real bullet in his gun. I don’t know why he didn't just shoot him in the house if he plans to murder him anyway, especially as he has heart trouble , but I guess there’s still 45 minutes to fill.

The hunt gets under way with Frank showing all his jungle cunning by phoning round the local hotels to see where his quarry is staying. Dan meanwhile gets hit on by a waitress whom he turns down and then by a nightclub floozy whom he goes home with. Go Dan! After a small kiss the woman reveals herself to be the dead brother’s fiancée and she knows all about the plan. She doesn't like Frank as he’s a mentalist but we’d all guessed that for ourselves.

As the two men get closer a low rent denouement awaits but I just hope there wasn't a mix up at the rain coat and bullet shop!

This was certainly a ‘B’ feature and looked more like a strung out TV episode than a feature film.

The cast of half a dozen were all pretty poor with the only recognisable face being that of Chuck Connors who played Frank. He didn't convince as the unhinged, vengeance hungry brother whose heart condition appeared to only manifest itself when he thought about hunting - running about the streets was fine!

Our hero Dan was played by Don Ross who got an ‘introducing’ credit in what was a pretty big role. Alas he didn't have anything in the way of star quality and a career of bit parts and TV work were all that followed.

There wasn't really any tension involved as the pair meandered about LA and given the only bullets fired where from the stock footage you can understand why it wasn't exactly a thrill fest.

I did enjoy the slutty women trying to woo our tightly buttoned hero but apart from the curiosity value there’s no reason to shine a light over this rightly forgotten yarn.

Best Bit : Come back to my place!

‘W’ Score 8/23

No.185 : Welcome Home Roscoe Jenkins (2008)

Welcome Home Roscoe Jenkins at the IMDb

Martin Lawrence stars in this alleged comedy as a successful talk show host who has to reassess his priorities when he returns to the family home and reengages with his relatives. It’s basically a fish out of water scenario rolled up with some issues and knowing that family is more important than money. So far so very righteous but is there something to be salvaged from this worthy premise? Not much!

Lawrence runs his chat show as ‘Dr RJ Taylor' and dispenses homely wisdom to his brawling guests. He’s engaged to a beautiful lady who has just won ‘Survivor’ and confident in his life of luxury and comfort. We can tell where the bar is set early on when he shows up for his plane in a white suit and orders a red wine - guess the rest! With is suit ruined and luggage lost he’s immediately out of his comfort zone and cheap laughs are gained as he has to wear a succession of gaudy outfits.

Things deteriorate as he meets up with his wise-cracking brother, complete with the afro comb stuck in his hair. The brother is meant to have an easy charm to offset RJ’s stiffness but he just comes across as an annoying prick. We learn that ‘Dr RJ Taylor’ is the Roscoe Jenkins of the title and that he’s trying to escape the humble roots that he’s now returning to.

His superior attitude is immediately pricked by his father James Earl Jones and his other siblings including the late Michael Clarke Duncan who kicks his ass whenever possible. The rest of the weekend contains all the predictable sequences such as a softball game and treasure hunt where our man is cast down from his ivory tower and forced to consider what is really important in life. That along with an endless succession of people getting hit by stuff, dog rape and fart jokes.

We learn that Roscoe regrets not hooking up with his high school sweetheart and that the ‘Survivor’ girlfriend is not that nice, as she’s conniving to snare her man like she's still on the show. Will Roscoe’s materialistic approach be forgotten for what is truly valuable and will he end up with the slightly plainer prom queen or the bitchy game show contestant? Probably the latter but you never know. Well maybe you do…

OK I’m not the target market for this film with its 99% black cast but I’m multi-cultural and can appreciate a well crafted character piece that examines family life and the assembling of wealth over other priorities - but this isn’t it. People getting hit in the balls and food fights are low brow in any culture and the wafer thin character arc for Lawrence made for an unengaging two hours.

The third act where Lawrence leaves his son behind to win an obstacle race while being cheered on by his bitch girlfriend to be greeted by his sad family and poignant musical cues was cringe worthy beyond belief. A talk with Dad flagged the inevitable Road to Damascus conversion and as Lawrence’s wardrobe improved you knew things were going to be all right.

It was a good cast and, despite some slapstick that was out of kilter with the overall tone of the film, there were some things to like. Sadly these were remote islands in a sea of mawkish sentimentality and the long-awaited payoff couldn’t be more predictable if it was set in red lights before the credits.

Best Bit :  Personal topiary wins the day
‘W’ Score - 8/23

No.90 : We’re No Angels (1989)

We're No Angels at the IMDb

Robert De Niro and Sean Penn star as a pair of escaped felons who disguise themselves as priests to avoid recapture. No hilarity ensues.

The film opens in decent fashion with our men safely locked up. After they chat during the governor’s speech they are given a beating and made to watch the execution of a mass murderer. Things go pear shaped however when the bad guy escapes from the electric chair and drags our heroes along in his escape bid. They manage to get over the wall but are left on their own as they are still chained up.

They manage to make it to a small town but the authorities are hot on their trail. As luck would have it a religious festival is about to start and our guys manage to pass themselves off as a pair of priests. Unable to get out of town they try to lie low but complications arise through Demi Moore’s single mother and Bruno Kirby’s confessional lawman.

Obviously no one has photographs of anyone as no one knows what the priests or indeed the escaped criminals look like. Fortunately for our guys the real priests take their time in arriving and everyone is so stupid that Sean Penn’s rough Brooklyn thicko can pass himself off as a distinguished scholar. They also fool young monk John C. Reilly who idolises their every word and mimics the clothes peg still stuck on Penn’s stolen clothes.

With the town in lock down and the real priests overdue our guys are in a bind. Could a procession into Canada be their salvation and can they convince the faithless Demi to lend them her sick child to allow them to join? Obviously the answer to both is yes and the only question remains is whether can they escape and at what cost?

This is a terrible film that can only be described as a comedy if your definition doesn’t require laughs, funny situations or characters. The opening scenes in the prison are really brutal and it hardly sits well with a film that quickly shifts to a bog standard fish out of water scenario. The laughs are supposedly derived form the situation of a couple of crooks passing themselves off as priests, but given that the church is so corrupt it’s hardly a great stretch.

I quite like De Niro in his ‘Meet the Parents’ comedy role but here he offers nothing in the way of mirth or sympathy for a poorly drawn character. Penn likewise was funny as Jeff Spicoli in ‘Fast Times at Ridgemont High’ but here he’s just a whiny caricature of the dumb New Yorker. The film boasts a cracking second string cast but no one does their best work here with the usually reliable Kirby and Reilly praying for a miracle in the shape of a decent line or scrap of character development.

The set up was pretty weak from the off and these ‘trapped in town’ films always seem restricted and annoying to me. The various impediments put in their path seem fabricated and why two hardened criminals don’t steal a truck from the start is never explained. The lack of the real priests also grates with their prolonged and unexplained absence an obvious McGuffin to allow the situation to exist.

The idea that our men can be redeemed by their masquerade is a pretty thin theme and I certainly had nothing invested in their dull quest for freedom and absolution.

There is pretty much nothing to recommend this film which is as much fun as two hours at church but significantly less funny.

Best Bit : Jail Break

‘W’ Score : 8/23

No.83 : Women In Cages (1971)

Women in Cages at the IMDb

‘Women In Cages’ is a hard biting social satire that makes valid socio-political points about the drug trade and the exploitation of women.

Not really.

‘Women in Cages’ is an 1971 exploitation film about a bunch of chicks in a foreign jail and their evil bitch of a matron. The film opens on board a floating brothel, staffed by stereotypes and women with those 1970‘s nipples. In a needlessly elaborate scheme some drugs are passed to Rudy, who turns out to be a real shit. He then takes his American girlfriend, Jeff, to the cock fighting, as you do. The police are however on the case and as they close in Rudy gives Jeff the drugs to hold for him. The authorities give Jeff 10 years in the baddest jail in town and let Rudy off Scot free. Bugger.

Jeff meets the other inmates and it’s good to see hygiene is taken importantly, as the girls are quickly hosed down and deloused. The girls then meet the nasty head matron, Alabama, played by the always foxy Pam Grier. Alabama is a right cow, and takes her pick of the girls for her bedroom and her torture chamber ‘play room‘.

On the outside Rudy is worried that Jeff will talk to the cops, so he enlists her junkie cellmate to do her in with a poisoned ham sandwich. When this fails she uses other tactics but is foiled at every turn. One of Jeff’s other cell mates is enlisted to look after her as the cops thinks she can be turned to testify against Rudy and the syndicate.

With the promised early release not forthcoming Jeff plots the easiest jail break in history and gets out with four other prisoners. For reasons that are unclear, apart from another shirt ripping, they bring Pam along but the notorious trackers are hot on their trail. Can any of the girls survive and will the syndicate be brought to its knees?






This is a pretty crappy film, even given the low standards of the genre. The characters are unbelievable and the acting is deplorable. The dialogue stinks like the prison’s hole with lines like “It’s just like home - only different” peppering the shambolic plot.



Obviously the kind of person who picks ‘Women in Cages’ off the shelf isn't looking for much in the way of stylised drama and at least it delivers on its promise of naked women, lesbian sex and a bit of torture. It’s not very erotic however, and pretty tame by most standards - nothing below the waist please!

The jail break, which is simply going out through the sewers, is a bit easy and the feared trackers look like a bunch of blokes pulled out a Philippino bar for the occasion. Pam Grier shows great promise in an early role, and at least she gets some character development when she sees the horrors she used to inflict on others when the tables are turned.

The lead is devoid of personality however, and fails to register any emotions even when the most heinous outrages are inflicted upon her. She is also totally dumb and her relationship with the swarthy boyfriend doesn’t ring true. Still the nits I pick are hardly the kind that would concern the producers of this type of rubbish. A grubby distraction that should be put away for a few years itself.


Best Bit : Pam gets a massage


‘W’ Rating : 8/23

No.78 : Wild Side (1995)

Wild Side at the IMDb


‘Wild Side’ is a sexy thriller that is strangely devoid of sex appeal and indeed thrills. Anne Heche plays an expensive (no such thing as ‘high class’!) hooker who has a night of grinding planned with the dodgily coiffured Christopher Walken. He is a bad guy money launderer and has been targeted by the FBI in the past in honey trap operations. He thinks Anne may be an agent but reasons that if she is really a hooker she’ll shag his body guard for $500. Anne is a hooker but laughs off the low rent deal only to get raped by the body guard, who is in fact an undercover FBI agent. Keeping up?

Anne reports the rapist agent to his bosses but rather than investigate the crime they tell her that  unless she cooperates in nabbing Walken that they’ll tell her banking bosses of her sexy sideline. Anne doesn't like her day job at the bank, as all the clients play grab ass, but she needs the job to keep her house so reluctantly agrees to go along with the dubious plan.

Sexy Joan Chen then shows up at Anne’s bank and the two soon become lovers. We learn Joan is married to Walken and a three way scam starts with the alliances unclear. They plan to infect the banking system with a virus and steal $160 million in the process. Things complicate further when the romantic tangle causes Joan to overdose on pills. With the relationships straining against the stress of the complex cycle of duplicity and muddy plotting we have to guess who’ll end up with who and at what cost.

This was an atrocious movie with some of the worst acting you’ll ever see. Tony the sassy bodyguard come cop is as convincing as Big Bird would have been in the role and he equates shouting with acting in every scene. Walken is usually good value but he wilts under the twin strains of a bad wig and shocking script.

The plot, which seems to be deliberately meandering and vague, is all over the place and if it’s trying to mimic the complexities of the characters’ relationships, it succeeds only in duplicating their annoyingness. There are plenty of sex scenes to keep the casual pervert happy involving all of the cast in various combinations. “Do I look like a lesbian to you?” screams Anne in somewhat feigned outrage.

The dialogue is really bad with lines like “banking is like the Mafia- you’re in it for life” - say what? Walken also threatens to kill someone who is attempting suicide without any apparent irony. “ She leaves an I blow your genitalia off“ from a faux Italian Walken also stood out as did “It ain't Ben Dover, Idaho“.

Anne is pretty enough and has a good body which she’s not shy about showing off, but her sexy scenes left me a bit cold. It may have been the blue lighting or the fact that she was grinding Walken who was wearing a Beatles wig, but erotic it was not. Her thin reedy voice and pain of a character made it hard to empathise with her situation and frankly I was cheering on Walken, wig and kinks included. Chen looked pretty uncomfortable doing the lesbian scenes and he weedy character was the same as she trotted out in ‘Twin Peaks’.

If you watch this with ironic detachment you will find a few laughs with the crappy dialogue and chronic acting. You also get a few bangs for your buck, but overall this film should be an embarrassment to all involved.

Best Bit : Walken confronts guard with Trojan as Anne puts fingers in ears.


‘W’ Score 8/23

No.6 : War of the Worlds 2 : The Next Wave (2008)

IMDb Link : http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1183733/




It's interesting to note that June of 2005 saw the release of three separate War of the Worlds films. One was the well known Spielberg/Cruise effort and the second was a period piece that you can only buy over the web. The other version was a cash in designed to piggy-back the Spielberg effort and it must have enjoyed some success as it spawned this straight to DVD sequel.



I’ve not seen the original, and the plethora of War of the Worlds titles make it hard to pin point, but given the quality of the sequel I doubt I’ll bother. We do get a few minutes of recap at the beginning of ‘The Next Wave‘, no doubt to boost the weedy sub 90 minutes running time.




This film opens two years after the initial alien invasion has been repelled. Seemingly the victory was somewhat pyrrhic as there is no army or government and the resistance is based in a scrap yard. Unbelievably they do a have a fleet of Stealth bombers which have been adapted to fly in space using captured alien technology. No, really. It’s just as well really as the aliens are coming back and this time they have filters to stop another bacterial defeat.




Our hero and son are struggling to get by, with his birthday present being a tin of Ravioli - happy days. Things speed up as Earth resistance, helped by a scientist who thinks she’s Blanche DuBois, make a strike on the aliens’ mother ship while our man tries to find his son who has been captured by the bad guys.




This film is total rubbish. No ifs or buts, it’s crap. The main concern is budgetary with the aliens’ hive looking like the inside of a hooker’s boudoir. “Don’t touch the walls!” is the oft repeated advice - wise words, they may fall over. The big reveal that the action is actually happening on Mars is a cracker and explained by the aliens recreating a disused industrial estate as a ‘petri dish’ for captured humans. Lucky that, must have saved a fortune on special effects.




The aliens draw humans’ blood by putting a bag over their heads and the stunning alien vistas are all shown from the character’s point of view, meaning a big drawing can be used. Cheapness can be excused if there is a good script and top notch acting but alas both are missing in action. The story is a hybrid of ‘Independence Day’ and ‘I, Robot’ and the cast has the acting talent of an Ikea living room set.




Truly awful and to make matters worse they leave the door open for another sequel!




Best Bit : The downed fighter taking off with a cargo of people was pretty good even if the action was all off camera (again).




‘W’ Rating : 8/23